Uber covered up massive data breach

HACKERS plundered the personal data of 57 million Uber customers and drivers - but the app-based cab company covered up the breach for a year, paying the pirates to keep quiet instead, according to a new report.

Names, email addresses and phone numbers for 50 million riders and info from seven million drivers were exposed in the October 2016 hack - and the company learned about it a month later, Bloomberg reports.

But instead of reporting the breach to regulators or victims, the company acquiesced to the hackers' demands for $A132,000 to delete the data, according to the report.

57 million customers and 600,000 drivers had their data compromised in Uber hack. But they paid the hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet so I'm sure it's all going to be ok.

The hack wasn't sophisticated - the digital thieves broke into the accounts of two Uber engineers on the coding site Github, where they found the passwords to some online data storage that contained the personal info, according to the report.

"Uber now says it had a legal obligation to report the hack to regulators and to drivers whose license numbers were taken. Instead, the company paid hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet."

This isn't the first time the company has been hacked - or failed to report it. Uber agreed to a $A26,000 settlement with New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman last year after it took several months to own up to a data breach.